60,000 students who opted out plus a changed cut score (see here) equals one thing—an invalid and unreliable test. As someone who has studied and analyzed different psychometric assessments over these last thirty years, it is obvious what John King has done. He has created a score that has no basis in reality except to attempt to score a political point or two.

First, we have to analyze those students who opted out. The hotbed of the opt out movement did not come from those students who are in failing schools. No, the students that opted out came from the middle and upper middle class. These are mostly suburban students who are in successful public schools who mostly would have passed these assessments. The parents of these students are sophisticated enough to understand the motives and agenda of those who created the common core. If Commissioner King kept the same cut scores as last year, the result would be a much higher percentage of students failing both the ELA and math assessments because now we have a change in the population taking the tests. We now have a population that is poorer, more disabled and lacking in the basic skills to even come close to passing. Obviously, he could not give his political enemies even more ammunition to use against his beloved Pearson family of assessments. Therefore, he lowered the cut scores for these assessments. He made sure that by getting fewer items correct, a student would be able to get a 3 or a 4 on these tests. At the same time, he made sure that the scaled scores of the 2013 and 2014 tests “looked” the same. He made sure the same scaled number cut from a 2 to a 3 for each grade. He did this obviously counting on the ignorance of most school parents to believe his lies. What he did was curb the test to compensate for too many students getting low scores and again made his predictions come true. A few months before the 2013 assessments, he knew 2/3s would fail. Even more unbelievable was that a year before the 2014 tests, he knew there would be “incremental” growth. With this type of skill, he is in the wrong field. He needs to relocate to Atlantic City or Las Vegas and become a professional gambler. No, better yet, he should enter the financial world of all his friends in the 1% and become a professional stock broker. If you take his advice, you will never lose money.

I still do not know what kind of test these common core assessments are supposed to be. Are they norm reference tests or criterion referenced tests measuring skill attainment? If they purport to be a norm referenced test, these assessments are violating every rule in the book. When one norms a test, such as the WISC IV measuring IQ or a standardized achievement test, such as the WIAT III, the scaled scores or the number of items needed to achieve a certain level do not change from year to year or test to test. Basals and ceilings that are used to derive the scores for these tests remain the same until a test is completely revised and rewritten. In addition, all such tests have technical manuals that describe the standardization process. It describes the samples used, the populations used and the statistical procedures used to derive such scores. This is done so that other psychometricians can review, analyze and critique the assessment in a public way so that when the test is revised, rewritten and restandardized, the new assessment will have better validity and reliability in its use. Does Pearson not understand this process? They sure do. How do I know? They also publish such tests as the WISC IV and WIAT III.

If these common core assessments are supposed to be criterion referenced tests, another set of rules are being violated. If one gives a student a criterion-referenced test, it is supposed to measure skills that are supposed to have been taught and learned at a certain developmental level. Yet the common core tests are assessing skills that are developmentally inappropriate or have not been taught. It would be equivalent to taking a final examination at the beginning of a high school or college course. Then when you fail, the professor or teacher will then say to you that you are just not ready to do the work in course. Yes, the scenario I just described is insane. But that is the scenario that those who have developed the common core believe in.

The agenda as to the use of criterion referenced as well as standardized achievement or cognitive assessments is quite different than the agenda as to the purpose of the common core. Criterion-referenced and cognitive assessments administered individually under optimum conditions are used to make important life decisions about a child. The above tests are often used to determine whether or not a child has a disability. If clinicians or the public or private agencies they work for use such tests incorrectly or flippantly, they can be sued and often are because we have federal and state statutes governing the use of such instruments. On the other hand, the agenda of the common core is quite different. These tests have a political purpose. Its main goal is to destroy America’s public educational institutions. Its purpose enshrined in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top with the unrealistic expectation that 100% of school age children pass these assessments or the public school and its teachers are punished. Yet, our same government has laws governing disabled students and how these children should be assessed to determine if a child has a handicapping condition. It really is ironical when you think of it. On the one hand, the government says every child must be college and career ready while at the same time it says that some children should not have college as a realistic life plan.

In New York, when a disabled student reaches 21 years old the Committee on Special Education must do an exit interview with a caregiver to make sure that students who have significant multiple disabilities have a realistic post-secondary plan. In most cases, there has to be a plan to make sure such young adults are placed in center-based, prevocational or vocational programs to make the student as independent as humanly possible. For some of these former students, the most that is hoped for is a total care setting; for others it may mean a group home with some type of supervised/unsupervised employment. On Friday, while I was reading the results of these invalid and unreliable tests, I was doing an exit interview for a student who reached 21 years old that was blind, autistic and developmentally disabled born with a myriad of medical problems. He is wheelchair bound and needs to be fed with a tube. I would love to ask Mr. King whether we teachers failed to get this young person “in small increments” college or career ready. Guess what, it is Mr. King’s state education department who is presently failing such a student because the parent has yet to find a post-secondary program that will meet the needs of such an individual. I was the first professional to give this parent the phone number of the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities, which is supposed to be a state run program to help such individuals.  The fact that no transitional plan was made by one of Mr. King’s state approved nonpublic schools for such an individual and his family is a way bigger problem than make believe scores on an invalid and unreliable test.  If anything, Mr. King is the one who has failed.  He has failed the wrong political test.